Geographically speaking: Finding African geospatial layers

This article discusses the economic importance of geospatial layers for the continent of Africa and provides details on the geospatial layers included in the company’s AfricaProfiler dataset.

Africa is a continent not a country, so often when reference is made to the continent it is grouped as a country which becomes extremely confusing. Africa is in the news all the time and represents a new frontier not just for South Africa but the rest of the continent. By 2100, 50% of the world’s population that is under 25 will be African. What does this mean for data on the continent?

Fig. 1: A link to the past – trade languages.

Africa – Starting a geospatial layer

The western world has a vested interest in Africa, for economic, military, social or even political reasons. Therefore the starting point of creating GIS layers began in the United States and detailed layers were published by American Digital Cartography (ADC). While they produce maps for the entire earth, many industries benefit from using the ADC maps as a starting tool. Some of the industries include aviation, weather, government, logistics management, fleet management and transportation, communication and other business sectors.

The digital atlas is useful for any application requiring 1:1 000 000 scale vector maps of large areas, but does go into province, administrative and city levels. It can be used on any geographic information system (GIS) platform.

As Africa becomes more open to using GIS, each statistics office, with the help of the United Nations, will start to create smaller areas for analysis. They will start supplying maps for smaller areas, where data is available. This will take time as there is no uniform layer for the continent.

Fig. 2: African economic regions.

Africa – Region or country

While Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco are predominantly Arabic speaking, their trade language is French. The geographic basis they use emanates from France and the datasets are similarly grouped. A second, equally important factor is that of the data publication in French and Arabic. A household in the Maghreb countries used to contain multiple extended families, but this is slowly changing. This change is starting to reflect in new housing developments for smaller families in urban areas. The major developers are both French and Arabian.

Economic regions by themselves can provide details on the countries which form part of their region. Certain countries have decided to be grouped into economic hubs and boost their regional importance. Due to Africa being a continent and not a country, it became important for us to acknowledge and include all the demarcated regions (The Africa Report, UN, Ecowas, SADC etc) as part of our dataset in AfricaProfiler. We do find that the regions published by The Africa Report appear to make the most sense, but again users of the data can group the countries according to the different regional bodies.

Fig. 3: African leaders – number of years in power.

The political playing field of the continent has some leaders who have been in positions of power for a long time. While these positions of power are slowly changing, as seen from Fig. 3, it appears that individual countries are focusing on political reforms, albeit slowly. This is important for businesses going into Africa as the history of countries is important for future business opportunities. The political layer of AfricaProfiler brings in the detail on the political front which is obtained from African and British information sources which is updated annually.

Companies will invest in African countries that will offer them a safe trading space, which have good future investment opportunities and which are able to deliver good returns on their investment. To develop a product specifically for business requires information on economic data. We use economic data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations as well as countries where information is readily available, to create an economic layer in AfricaProfiler. GDP is still used as a barometer for growth by most businesses, and so AfricaProfiler’s economic layers also include data on imports, exports, consumption expenditure, income distribution, and so on.

Africa – Datasets

Profiling Africa requires a multi-level approach and while our GIS endeavour is a start, it will eventually incorporate individual countries where the data reliability is high. In the meantime, you can use AfricaProfiler with all the latest maps to obtain macro and certain micro level information. The current volume of the ADC World Map is v 7.3, and includes ISO code, 3-digit country code, and provincial boundary updates as they become available.

Every African country is on a growth trajectory, and information about data usage, updates and GIS will become more accurate in the foreseeable future. The latest update includes census information from Ghana, Liberia, Senegal and Djibouti.

Fig. 4: African economic data for 2015.

While ADC uses statistics solely from the CIA World Book, it became necessary to re-work the data and render it suitable for users. It is a long process in gathering the data, verifying and updating to ensure consistency and reliability of AfricaProfiler.

To this end, we have modified the following:

Cities and places are categorised according to the United Nations definition.

Population data is extracted from four different sources, including the statistics council from each country where it is available.

Airports are re-labelled as international or local, and airfields are listed separately.

For example, for Mozambique, The Centro Nacional de Cartografia e Teledeteccao provided information on the Administrative areas, which we tapped into.

Fig. 5: Detailed map of Angola.

African geospatial data moves Africa forward

The growth and fast pace set by the countries in Africa means that now, more than ever, the need for accurate and concise information is vital, and this includes looking at:

History and politics

Demography: population, languages, education, age group, income percentiles, and so on.

Having the AfricanProfiler dataset available on a GIS platform is a useful asset for any organisation. All of the information listed above is available in the latest AfricaProfiler dataset, and all this information is updated annually. The maps are also regularly updated by ADC and any new versions are provided as part of the dataset.